This summer, the midfield rework was clear to see and AC Milan are reaping the rewards in buckets so far. Something that is likely to continue.
When Tijjani Reijnders was sold, there was an uproar, understandable given his quality. However, his departure has allowed Milan to renovate an area that, even with Reijnders, was poor. Of course, it worked and had moments.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
However, it was never a ‘complete’ unit and the Rossoneri often paid for this. So, like with the sale of Sandro Tonali, the Reijnders funds were put into restarting the midfield. Ardon Jashari, Samuele Ricci, and Luka Modric started the process.
It ended, though, with the signing of Adrien Rabiot, who has not instantly hit the ground running, as Gazzetta dello Sport write this morning, as seen below.
Experience and emotions
The Frenchman has ‘started like a rocket’, winning the most duels, aerial duels and making the most tackles. Alongside Modric, the Milan midfield is envied by the entire league. Their talent is recognised, established and elite.
Modric and Rabiot move things along, with only the Croatian making more opposition half passes than his French partner. A monster and a magician, as referrred to by Massimiliano Allegri’s assistant this weekend, the pair have it all.
Clear depth
At the start of the season, Allegri had asked for 15 goals from central midfield, and maybe now this is possible. Ruben Loftus-Cheek has already bagged one, whilst Youssouf Fofana got his first of the season in Udine.
Then, Rabiot was a danger himself, and we cannot forget the Maestro’s first goal last week. Already, the Diavolo are a fifth of the way there.
Last season, the focus was on one man, whilst the others aided. Now, the unit is complete with quality, and yet there is still more to come. Jashari and Ricci are yet to truly start their seasons, who knows what they will add.
What must be remembered, though, is that both are young, and they will only learn from the best in Italy.
Again, a few wins against average teams and suddenly, media is claiming Milan to be the best in Italy… Let’s play against Napoli, Juve and Inter, then we will come back to this conversation.
It’s just matchday 4 ffs.
I am loving our quality football but let’s not get ahead of ourselves like we always do
No, can you read? It literally say best MIDFIELD in Italy.
Against mid teams, we should come back to this after match 19
even so not when anguissa, mctominay, lobotka and de bruyne is around
So far… but I am worried if this midfield holds up against juve and Napoli. Somehow I am more calm against Inter from what I’ve seen from them.
I am sure against Juve and inter, but not Napoli
The nagging house wives are around…
Some biscuit fans will always rant
Udinese beat Inter. Another average team.
Like I said in the ratings article, we need to pump the brakes a little. Granted it was a good win but it’s still very early days. The team is still taking shape and we don’t know what it would look like under Max as the season progresses. Maybe we would be talking about a bore 1-0 score if. Max was on the sidelines instead of Landucci.
We will beat all of them
Match versus napoli will tell. IF manchester city can beat Napoli, so can we. Because we have beaten liverfool right.
The crazy thing is that our (current) mid pillars in Luka and Adrien totaled only 7 mil in the process. We haven’t talked about another pillar in Ardon and Samuelle who totaled almost 60 mil. Yes we have an absolutely great depth on our mid, especially with only 1 competition at stake.
Last few matches, leao is missing.
Lets see if the midfield is still winning when a lazy boy is added into the team
Leao was missing most of last season too if you consider his performances. Pulisic has always been the #1 since joining the club. 🙂
Just because you keep cutting and pasting the same comment on multiple threads, doesn’t make your point any more relevant. It was a dense take on those threads, and it’s still a dense thread here…
LOL @ACM1899 – well said
That kid @bb HATES Leao – I think it’s because he thinks he could do better – after all did you know @bb scored 200 goals when he was 8 yrs old in the co-ed church league? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Our midfield is definitely the strongest in Serie A and even though we have kept 3 clean sheets I still belie the defense needs a quality CB come January and a proper striker who can score 15 goals per season. Even though Leao will be the focus of our strikers.
Pulisic and Nkunku are more support strikers or attacking midfielders.
Napoli midfield may have something to say about ours being the best. guess we’ll see this weekend.